Holiday Stripes

November 30, 2015

One of the holiday-esque manis I promised from a few weeks ago. This one is really subtle, but sparkly, which I think works since this time of year is so darn sparkly with all the lights, and decorated trees.

Please excuse how dry my skin is, I've been having a hard time protecting my hands lately.

Polishes Used:

China Glaze: "Hey Sailor!"
Julie G.: "My Private Palace"

Diva Nails

Did this lovely set on a wonderful lady last week. She wanted sparkling red tips for her cruise. We used her own polishes, I didn't make a note of the name of each, but a true red polish was used as a base for the chevron tip, then they were coated with a chunky glitter in matching red. We topped it off with a nice black stripe to make the red really pop.

Hopefully her manicure is still sparkling bright.

Valentine's Design #1

It's been quite a while, over a year since I last posted.

Here's a Valentine's themed design for you guys, it's fairly simple.

I apologize for my absense, I was going through a lot of stuff after I lost my job back in 2013, and I hadn't even been painting my nails, until just recently, but now I'm trying to get back into updating this blog at least once a week.

So for this design I used needle-dragging for the mostly pink nails, only one of which turned out to look like hearts (apparently I'm very rusty), and a simple pink watermarble for my ring and thumb nails as an accent.

Colours used:

"Punk Pink 165" by Sally Hansen

"Cotton Candy" by Julie G.
"Blanc" by Essie (the first and only Essie polish I own)

Matted Garden

I forgot to post these for you all last Monday.

August/04/2013

 As of late, my life has been getting increasingly hectic, much to my dismay. It seems as though every single weekend this summer has been consumed by stupid parties (those who know me personally know I'm no social butterfly, and crowds/people in general stress me out to no end). So as a result I have not had much time to think of designs, or even carry them out.

Luckily though, these turned out fast and simple enough to do. The roses are handpainted with red acrylic paint. The base colour I used was "Smoke and Ashes" by China Glaze, the shimmer in it does not show up because it's been mattified via China Glaze "Matte Magic".

I hope you all have a lovely week. Also to the Canadians who follow me, the CNE is opening this coming Friday!

Butterflies

I wish I had more butterfly stickers.

July/14/2013

The base I used is "Steady as She Rose" by OPI. The butterflies I purchased from the Born Pretty Store. They are actually water decals, and at first I wondered if they would actually adhere to nail polish, but they worked beautifully. I just wish I had more.

Soft Water-less Marble

I find it so weird trying to type on my laptop since my work computer is completely different.

Also, it sucks that I missed last week, both LGBTQ pride AND Canada Day. I didn't get a chance to since my new furbaby wanted to play with my brushes.

Here's a simple and easy one:

July/07/2013

A super easy water-less marble, better known as "needle-dragging" except I used a brush in place of a needle.

I used "You Callin' Me a Lyre" by OPI as a base, with "Fairy Dust" (China Glaze), "Disco Ball" (Sally Hansen) and "French White Creme" (Wet n' Wild) for this.

Rose Among Thorns

Really simple for this week.

June/09/2013 to June/15/2013

The colours used were "Rose Among Thorns (Neon)" and "Tempt Carnation" by China Glaze. The stripes were done using striping tape and I then added some gold studs I got from the BornPrettyStore. 

Water Decals

I think it was last year, but I bought a set of 20 different water decal full nail strips, and here's one of them:

June/01/2013

This weekend was really busy so I needed to do something really fast, and these water decals are good for those days. It took me about 20 minutes to get these all done, they are a little tricky to work with though.

Have a good week!

Cotton Candy

This manicure reminds me a lot of the cotton candy clouds you get at fairs and such.

May/26/2013 to May/31/2013

 So a did a simple ombre using "Tickled Pink" by Wet n' Wild and "Pastel Blue" from Kleancolor. I topped it off with Kleancolor's Aurora because it's just too pretty not to use on these pastel manicures.

Matte Leopard

The base colour I used is a frankenpolish, I combined Orly's "Coffee Break" with "Fois Gras" by China Glaze and some white polish to get a grey-ish taupe colour. I topped it with some pale gold paint and added the leopard spots. I went with a matte top coat this time instead of a glossy one because I wanted to test it's staying power.

Peaches n' Cream

I reblogged a photo from Miss Pop Nails on tumblr the other day with this design on it. And, since my original idea failed miserably, I attempted a slightly different version of hers.

May/05/2013

The base colour for these is "9 to 5" from Julie G's Jesse's Girl line. It's a really pale pastel peach shade. I did the lines in white acrylic paint. The best nail is the pinky I think, next time I will probably use striping tape to make the pattern more uniform.

Simple Glam

I had another design in mind for this week, but it kept failing, so I swapped it out for this one.

Indoors

 I also have a wedding coming up soon to go to, if my job plans hold out I won't be able to go. So this particular design is super simple, the main three fingers are "I Herd That" by China Glaze, with "Hot Blooded" by L.A. Colors on the ring and thumb nails as accents. I added a triangle half moon in "I Herd That" to them to make it a little less boring.

Outdoors

Since it's finally getting warm and beautiful outside, I was able to grab a nice shot of these in the sunshine.

These nails would look really great during the holidays too, now that I think about it.

Little Mermaid

This one is really nice and clean, and simple.

I also wanted another excuse to draw scales. So these remind me of mermaid tails with the pastel shades sponged randomly onto the accent nails. I like the cute scalloped french tips on the other nails too. It's a very clean, and simple looking manicure.

I sponged "Pastel Teal", and  "Pastel Blue" (by Kleancolor) and "Lacey Lilac" (Sally Hansen) onto the ring finger, and went over top of it with "Age of Aquarius" (Color Club) for the scales. The base I used was "French White Creme" by Wet n' Wild. This one was really cute and easy to do.

Spring Flowers

It's officially spring!!! I'm so happy! Finally this snow shall melt and lead to beautiful flowers and double digits! To ring in the spring, here's a floral manicure!

March/31/2013

I apologize for the photo quality, I was in a rush and didn't manage to get a good photo of these with my proper camera before running out the door.

The base colour I used was "Don't Touch My Tutu" by OPI. With some purple and blue flowers done in acrylic paint. Very simple, and fast, although I plan to revisit this in the future, next time I will make the colours brighter looking.

Cheshire Cat

These remind me vaguely of the Cheshire Cat from Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland.

I can't recall when these were done.

Allow me to start off by saying, I attempted my own home made matte top coat, using corn starch and clear polish, as you can see it worked, although that big white splotch is some corn starch that didn't quite get mixed in enough.

The base is "Va Va Voom" by Orly, with the stripes done in "Twilight" by L.A. Girl.

I like my homemade matter top coat, I just need to remember to shake it really well hahah.

Dress Nails (Feet Warning)

So a client of mine asked for nail art that resembled the dress she was wearing to an event.

March 06 2013

The pattern on the dress was very brushstroke-like using a magenta, hot pink and black. The colours I used were "Ahoy!" and "Flying Dragon(Neon)" by China Glaze and "Black Creme" by Wet n' Wild. This was a very quick and easy design to do and the client loved it.

Kleancolor "Pastel Blue"; Swatch

The colour I have for you today is "Pastel Blue" by Kleancolor.

Indoors.

 So, for those of you familiar with Kleancolor, you already know they are not Big 3 Free, so they do contain Fromaldehyde, Toluene and  DBP. Personally, as much as I like to avoid toxins, for a wide variety of shades at roughly $1-$2 per bottle, I do quite like them.

Natural Sunlight.

On to the actual colour now. "Pastel Blue" is just that, a nice pastel blue, very much like baby blue. It's a very clean looking shade, and is great for Easter manicures, if you do those. This was with 2 coats, and you can see it's quite opaque, I did not have any trouble with streaking with this colour which was really nice. The wear on these are nice too, I find that they don't chip very often, unless the base coat I use sucks. It also dries with a nice gloss to it, you can see it better in the first photo, so you don't need top coat with this unless you want to. A thing to keep in mind though, I notice these tend to dry slower than other polishes, so try to use thin coats and give them plenty of drying time. So to end off, this is a nice fairly inexpensive polish if you don't mind it containing the Big 3. 

Border Love

I have my final Valentine's Day nail art of this year for you.

From the side.

Frontal View.

The base colour for these is "Ahoy!" by China Glaze, with a champagne coloured paint used for the little hearts everywhere. I had the idea to do a vertical border on one side and I think it turned out nicely.

I hope you enjoy and have a good week!

Red and Gold Hearts

Here's a  pretty Valentine's design:

Feb/04/2013

Thumb Close up.

So the base colour I used for these is "You Callin' Me a Lyre" by OPI, with a glitter gradient created in "Syngery" (Gold) and "Animate" (Red) by L.A. Girl Glitter. The hearts were done using acrylic paint in red and gold, but you can substitute for red/gold nail polishes if you don't have paint. Excuse the blue stain on my thumb nail, I managed to get some ink there. I hope you enjoy these nails, and remember they work well on any nail shape!

Happy Monday!

Soft Flowers

This isn't an official Valentine's Day design but it is really soft, girly and romantic looking, so it could work well for a Valentine's manicure.

Jan/27/2013

The base used is 3 coats of "Glints and Glam" by Sation, with Konad "White" stamped in plates M26 and BM221 (ring finger). Really simple, really quick and very delicate but still pretty.

More official Valentine's Day nail art will be starting up next week, but in the meant time check out last year's ideas under the Valentines tag in the right side bar.

Have a Happy Monday!